


Opus 64

by blushamatic



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Cuddling, Kravitz Backstory, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 06:51:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13094709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blushamatic/pseuds/blushamatic
Summary: "Why a conductor?" Taako asks one day. Kravitz offers an answer.





	Opus 64

Taako works very hard to maintain his meticulously constructed air of blasé—that aura of bored detachment that suggests he can’t be bothered with the trivia of civilian life. He’s really ramped it up, too, in the wake of becoming a global celebrity. But the truth, Kravitz has learned, is that Taako clocks almost everything. On more than one occasion, he’s watched Taako disarm a casual acquaintance by inquiring after their brother and asking how the weather is in their hometown. It’s a very endearing quality for a public figure. Not all of the Seven have acclimated well to their new celebrity status—Barry opens a dimensional rift anytime anyone recognizes him in public, and Davenport literally took to the sea—but Taako . . . Taako makes a very good Famous Person.

So he’s not surprised when Taako asks him, “Why a conductor?” out of nowhere like no time has passed since their conversation at those pottery wheels. _He remembered_ , Kravitz thinks, and it makes him warm.

“Because I like being an insufferable pedant about music composition.”

Taako rolls his eyes and nuzzles his face further into Kravitz’s neck. “I know that already, and it’s not insufferable.” He jabs a finger at the trail of fuzz below Kravitz’s navel. “Most of the time. But seriously, you play, like, a gazillion instruments. Why not one of those?”

“That’s just it, I couldn’t decide. And I don’t know if I had it in me to be a full-time pianist or cellist or what have you. Mastering an instrument . . . It's rigorous. It can be strangely objective.” Kravitz tips his head back against the headboard. “I loved music because of, you know, how it _felt_.”

Taako nips at his jaw. “You’re saying you’re a big sap masquerading as a rationalist. I’m shocked.”

Kravitz grins as he stares out the window, suddenly adrift in memory. It’s snowing a bit. “I loved learning scores—obsessed over them. I loved knowing a piece of music like a room in my house.” The memory is clouded, dulled, but he can remember a lamplit night hunched over a desk, mortal eyes squinting at staffs of a symphony.

A soft huff of breath across his collarbone lures him back to the present. “Also I like, you know, running the show. Being in charge.”

“Hm. Debatable.”

“Oh?”

Taako flutters his lashes and drapes his thigh across Kravitz's. “I seem to remember a _certain someone_ making a spectacle of themselves last night _begging_ someone _else_ to ‘run the show’ . . .”

Ah. Right. Kravitz grants him a sheepish grin. “Well not _always_.” He gingerly places a palm on Taako’s thigh. “Too cold?”

“Nuh-uh,” his lover murmurs. Small, tender. Kravitz nestles his nose in his hair, breathes in rose water and olive oil.

“I did love performing. Well, that particular mode of performance, I should say—performing without having to look my audience in the face.”

Taako snorts. “Can’t relate.” Then he perks up suddenly, smacks his palms into the sheets, and begins to slide them beneath Kravitz's thighs. “You know what I think? I think you just liked the idea of a big room full of people staring at that _fine ass_.”

Kravitz chuckles and grabs at Taako’s wrists, wriggling them away from his cheeks. “That must have been it—stop, you—!” Taako cackles but relents and resettles himself in Kravitz’s lap. Kravitz loops his arms around the elf. “No, actually, that’s not at all what I was like in life. I wasn’t, ah, particularly at ease in my body when I was young.”

Taako whips his head around, looks him in the eye, skeptical, appraising. “Huh. Really?” Kravitz nods. Thinks again of the tense boy at the desk, up past midnight in a lonely house. ”What about all the hand stuff? Did you learn all that?”

“All the gestural technique? Sure. It's very . . . well it's all about what you can communicate with your hands rather than words.”

“Mhmmm can confirm, you are excellent at that.” He slides a finger along a vein in Kravitz’s hand appreciatively.

“It's the difference between something like—” And he counts out a waltz with his hands. “ _One—two—three_ . . . And—here, let me have your wrists, it's easier if you feel the difference.” He cradles Taako’s slender, freckled wrists in his and carves a much more elegant pattern in the air. “ _One—two—three_.” He curves his head down to catch Taako’s eye. “See? The second one tells you the quality, the mood, not just, ‘This is a brisk waltz in three-quarter time.’”

Taako is looking up at him, wide-eyed with a toothy and ridiculous grin, pink creeping into his cheekbones. Kravitz feels warm again. He tucks their hands around Taako’s middle.

“What about now?”

Kravitz peers at him. “Hm?”

“With your body. Feeling at ease, and all that. Bet that changed when you got a big scary scythe to carry around all the time, huh?”

Kravitz sighs. He knows the answer instantly, without thinking about it, though he’s never said it aloud. “No,” he murmurs into Taako’s hair. “It changed when I met you.”

Taako’s jaw goes slack. Kravitz realizes what a fatal blow he’s delivered and bites down a smug grin. He runs two hands up Taako’s torso, delighted by the shivers they leave in their wake. Taako’s body loosens, syrupy in his arms, and Kravitz rocks them back into the pillows.

Taako plucks at his hands. “Show me the waltzing again.”

Kravitz scoops up Taako’s wrists again, and obliges. “ _One—two—three_ . . .”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to SilverServerError for the prompt!
> 
> Yell with me on Twitter: @blushamatic


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